The message came on a Tuesday.
Short. Direct. The way Jake did everything.
Coffee. Not the office. Tomorrow morning. It's important.
Aria stared at it for a long moment. Then she typed back: 7am. The place on 5th.
His reply came in seconds. See you there.
The coffee shop was the kind of place that existed in every New York neighborhood without being remarkable in any of them — good coffee, small tables, the comfortable noise of a morning crowd that had somewhere to be. Aria arrived first. Ordered two coffees without thinking about it — the automatic hospitality her father had built into her — and found a corner table.
Jake arrived at seven exactly. He was dressed for the office — jacket, no tie, the slightly rumpled ease of a man who worked hard without performing it. He sat down, lo
